The Secret Son
by PlathRamsey
Summary: When Belle discovers they cannot have children it prompts Prince Adam to confess his deepest, darkest, most shameful secret. Chip is his hidden love child.


Belle wants a baby.

When Belle said she had something to share... I hadn't foreseen it hitting me like a ton of bricks.

"What is so offensive about what I said, Adam?" Belle was hurt that running this idea by me hadn't elicited the same feelings of sentiment that it had her.

Presumptuous possibly, but I thought I knew all of Belle's hopes.

Belle explained her relationship with the man that fell to his death off my tower. The vain mob-leader had once ambushed Belle with a less than romantic marriage proposal.

_"My little wife, rubbing my feet while the little ones play on the floor with the dogs. We'll have six or seven. Strapping boys like me... __**and you know who that little **__**wife will be?**__" _Belle had made it pretty clear to me that it was **never** going to be her. In fact, she was quite repulsed that Gaston demanded she fulfill his dream.

Gaston's dream she refused to fulfill? I thought she meant children. Considering my... unproductiveness with progeny, I felt I'd lucked out, finding my soulmate who was content without children. Clearly I misunderstood that whole conversation.

"Belle... it's just when you told me the Gaston story... I thought the "strapping young lads" bit insulted you?"

Belle wanted to scream. Strapping young lads with GASTON was insulting! Not with her true love! It was clear by the look of nausea on Prince Adam's face that such clarity wouldn't be perceived as heartwarming. "Adam, I don't understand why this is making you so tense..."

I have to face her! Though this isn't like the first time we'd met in my personal prison chamber. Belle urged me to reveal my form by stepping into the light. The dread of her revulsion in that moment was NOTHING compared to the fret this gives me. This revelation might have her viewing me as a _true _beast.

"If I'd known this...maybe I wouldn't have asked you to marry me... It's not fair to you."

She's now fed up with my vagueness and ready to start getting answers from me. "I think _I _get to decide what is fair to me and what _isn't."_

"Belle... You aren't going to like me very much after what I have to tell you..."

Belle nods to herself, almost confident she's stumbled upon the ugly truth. "It's alright with me. You don't want children."

"More like... cannot."

Belle looks crushed, but surprisingly on my behalf. "I'm sorry. That horrible curse robbed you of your humanity... and obviously much more."

_If you only knew the half of it, my love. Once upon a time I'd made my bed with a ravishing peasant girl. I'd managed to keep the scandalous affair hushed. My reputation as a noble was at stake. I had fun in the short term, but now I was onto someone new to interest me. This hadn't sat well with the young woman who had unfortunately fallen in love with me. So imagine the nightmare unfolding when she sought me out one year later, a bouncing baby boy in her arms. This child had my piercing blue eyes. I banished the mother from my castle. I couldn't have a bastard noble heir running free. Mrs. Potts, my most loyal servant, handled this taboo for me. She named the boy Chip and passed him off as her son to an unknown father._

_I'd been an ill-considered rambler. Too self-serving to catch on that this was deciding my fate in future existences. On that fateful winters night, a magical enchantress disguised her form as an old beggar woman, seeking shelter from the cold. Little had the younger me realized, but this was bait that I foolishly took. That day sealed my fate as the ugly hag revealed herself a pretty face... the same face of the peasant girl._

_This was cause and effect of my wrong-doings- disregarding the woman as unworthy of me, impregnating her, snatching the child from her arms and banishing her from my castle. I was cursed as a hideous beast until I could find someone to love me... but The Enchantress told me that if I was fortunate enough to find lov_e, my bride would be doomed to a childless marriage. Simple revenge... but a cruel trick to the woman foolish enough to love me.

NOTHING so far had made Belle turn from me. Not my _beastly form, my temper_... This might be the discovery that had Beauty heading for the hills.

I reach for her hand and find she's already slipped hers into mine. How could such a responsible and benevolent woman find me still worthy of her love? I expected to find shame and judgment... but instead I find my beauty embracing me with warmth and understanding.

The lovers took a stroll to the tower window, they peered out into the courts where Chip frolicked in play. "Adam... I have decided that you need to start a relationship with Chip."

Sternly I shake my head in disapproval. At once I close the curtains so that Belle will stop looking at Chip. I know where she was going with this. This newfound look of pity and affection meant for the small boy. I growl, retouching those beastly instincts."Stop this! This will never happen!"

Belle was a bit disappointed with her fiance. Considering his poor relationship with his own father, and the fact that he'd now never be able to have another son... Why wasn't he more desperate to bond with little Chip?

Her Prince once had a dark heart with no love in it. She'd managed to open his heart to _her_... she was sure she could get him to open it one more time... for his only son.


End file.
